The Gathandrian Trilogy 01 - The Gifting

memory bubbled over into scorching pools, which his mind couldn’t touch. Couldn’t bear to. Childhood. His mother’s death. The gifting. How Simon had betrayed it. How he’d tried so hard not to. But not hard enough. Not hard enough. Ralph. The deaths he’d caused. His first murder. And the last—the blacksmith’s woman. Most recent of all, the loss of Carthen. This last tore at Simon the most until he cried again, and his tears weren’t wet, but dry, piercing his face. Each memory the mind accessed was built on fire and replete with agony.
    The facts of the past were moulding together, whirling in a strange all-consuming fire. Spinning faster and faster until his mother became his gifting, Ralph became death, and murder took the face of Carthen. It was impossible to survive this. Longing for oblivion, Simon found it wouldn’t come.
    Instead, dark spots began to appear in the middle of the flame. Every now and then a flash of something other than fire. An impression of coolness. He grabbed at it. Missed. Cried out as the movement caused more flame to lick its way within him. The dark coolness came again and this time his fingers touched it before it vanished.
    But with each lunge, he grew weaker. Some spaces held no words, only images he couldn’t interpret, or remember. An impression of the people he’d glimpsed in the desert. And when he saw them, the high-pitched wailing pierced him once more. Is this where they had been banished to? Then Simon still had enough mind to pity them. By the fourth lunge, he was down on his knees and sobbing more dry, hot tears which only brought further pain. The fifth found him lying stretched out within the fire, struggling to reach the pockets of coolness when they appeared in his mind.
    Oh gods , Simon prayed, help me .
    A dark area opened up inches from his fingers and he reached for it before it passed by. Its coolness lapped at his thoughts and a rush of water went through him. Love .
    Love. The word exploded inside and sparkles of ice scattered around Simon’s blood. For a moment, strength returned. When the next darkness floated into view, he launched himself at it, both arms grasping for its sanctuary.
    It clung to the skin. An image. This time of a person he knew, and remembered only too well.
    Carthen.
    His expression pinioned Simon. Sent an arrow of regret and pain through the fire and into the heart. For he was there, and not there. the scribe would one day go to him, but knew the boy could never cross through to be here again.
    “Carthen,” he whispered and discovered that this time he could speak the words into the temporary refuge he had found. “I’m sorry. For it all. I’m sorry I couldn’t help you come through this. Something of myself will always be with you. In the fire. In the desert. I swear it.”
    For a heartbeat longer, Carthen’s eyes stared blankly at him. Then he was gone.
    Carthen.
    Simon’s next breath released flame from his throat. It powered through his mouth and disappeared into the darkening air. A stirring then in his body, and it seemed as if fire gathered itself from every corner of his flesh, rushed into his centre and flooded upwards and outwards through his mouth again. He lay winded on ground that was no longer burning, but cool, enticing and soft. His mouth tasted of charred skin and blood.
    Opening his eyes, Simon saw Ralph. He was close enough to touch, if he’d had the strength to do it. The Overlord’s hair was burned and parts of his flesh still smouldered, but he was breathing. Simon wondered what other damage he himself had taken, but found he was only glad to be alive. Nothing more mattered.
    He coughed. Ralph stirred and then looked at him. For a moment, it was as if he might speak, but with a sudden burst of noise, he vanished.
    In his place the shadow of something blocking out the sun. Gelahn.
    Lunging forward, the scribe grabbed the mind-executioner’s leg, sending the cane clattering to one side. He had a glimpse of lips pursed tight, a sensation of shock, and then Gelahn kicked him away. A small, brief victory, but a victory nonetheless.
    Simon collapsed back where he’d been lying. “You’re not always so all-seeing then, Gelahn. Are you? Why is it that you could not sense what I would do? And what have you done with Ralph? ”
    The only answer was a harsh curse and another sly kick. Then Gelahn smiled and something in Simon trembled.
    “You ask too many questions,” the mind-executioner